The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart - The Cons & Cons of Trump with Gov. Chris Christie

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

The second Trump administration is off to a chaotic start. To better understand the President’s mindset and motivations, we’re joined this week by Trump friend-turned-foe, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Plus, we delve into issues like DEI and meritocracy, and consider how both parties might evolve in a new Trump era. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod   > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic  Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher & Associate Producer – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu — This podcast is brought to you by: ZipRecruiter Try it for free at this exclusive web address: ziprecruiter.com/ZipWeekly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hey, everybody. Welcome once again to the weekly show. My name is John Stewart. It is end of January, I'm going to say, 2025. President Trump has been president forever or an hour. The confusion, the chaos, which I'm assuming is the point, has been stunning. Even for those expecting there to be this kind of,

I mean, they said shock and awe. They were coming in with shock and awe, which really is not a phrase that you expect to be deployed on your own country. I was under the impression that it was the kind of thing that we would deploy on countries we had hostilities with. But it turns out the hostility is with us. It's the people, the American people that are going to get the shock and awe.

I guess the most recent shock and awe is all the money. Let's just stop the money. Just real quick. I'm just going to, you know what, what are we doing there? What are we paying for? Let's just, let's just stop the money real quick and just take a, take a look at it. I imagine you could just keep paying the money and take a look at it while it's happening, but, but I guess they wanted to stop it.

They don't want to see it in motion. Apparently now they've rolled back. They're, they're putting back in, I guess, meals on wheels and a couple of other things that, but you know, they don't want to kill old people. But the rest of us, anyway, this is, it's a lot. It's a fucking lot. And to help us get through it, you know,

I can talk with the home team as much as we want. I want to get some insight on somebody who really knows Donald Trump, has spoken out against Donald Trump, has also collaborated. He's done the collabs and spoken out. But let's get to him right now to hopefully get a sense of where this thing may in fact be going and what are some of the darker undertones that are behind it. So without further ado, Governor Chris Christie, 55th governor, 55th of New Jersey, obviously

ran for president in 2016, 2024. Governor, what's happening? Exactly what I predicted would happen, John. I mean, you know, I ran for president for a year telling everybody that, you know, this guy has not changed, he's not different, and that character matters, and it matters more than any particular issue.

And what we're seeing now in the first, is it now 10 days or so? Years, I believe years. Is that, you know, the problem is gonna be that not everybody, in fact, not most people, will disagree with everything he does.

But the underlying problem, in my view, is the pettiness, the vindictiveness, the anger, all those things will inform much of what he does. It's going to lead to big problems, I think, in the country over the long term. So why, you know, you've known this about him. How long have you known him for? Many, many years. 23 years. 23 years, okay. I don't imagine that the pettiness, vindictiveness,

and anger and those various things that you talk about in terms of character just recently surfaced. That he went through some sort of midlife crisis and ended up with some personality ticks that old people get. We've known this for a very long time and by the way you were one of his boy he enjoyed making fun of you right? Oh yeah still does. But in 2016 you helped him. You helped him in the debates and all that. What is it that keeps people in the orbit? Is it a fear that you will lose your political career if you go against him? Is it a close to power? He makes people supplicants. How? Well, I think for different people,

it's different things, John. I think both of those factors that you just put up there are the real reasons for lots of different people. For me, back in 2016, I had known him, but not extraordinarily well. I'd known him for a long time, but nobody really gets very close to Trump. But when you are a acquaintance of his,

as I was during the years prior to 2016, he can be enormously charming. I'm sure. Enormously engaging, very solicitous. And for me, both as US attorney for seven of those years and then as governor for a number of those years, he was all those things to me. And so that was part of it.

And the other part for me was that it was like, okay, I ran in the primary against him, he beat me. I'm a Republican, he's gonna be the nominee, I'll be with him and try to make him better than what he is at the moment. And that was my motivation at the time, and I turned out to be wrong. Even in that moment, when he's doing things like, he makes the whatever it was, the Oreo Joe,

or he makes you a supplicant, and this is 2016, and then you watched him as president, you were part of his transition team. this is 2016 and then you watched him as president, you were part of his transition team. He went out of his way to kind of shame you, right? Mm-hmm. Why go back in 2020? What was it that made you still stick with,

it's one thing to say, okay, well that, I didn't really know in 2016. In 2020, you clearly knew. So what is it then? Well, in 2020, I think what it was was looking at these two guys, looking at Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And I really felt at the time,

like Biden was just too old to be president and wouldn't be able to do the job. And so I didn't like either choice, quite frankly, but- So you went with the one that was fatally flawed character wise. do the job. And so I didn't like either choice, quite frankly, but you went with the one that was was fatally flawed character wise. Right. I went with I went with that one, as opposed to the one who, you know, was in my mind, mentally incapable of doing the job. Had you had you had dealings with Biden at that time? And that that's where you drew that that conclusion.

Yeah. And known him for a long time. I've known Joe Biden longer than I know Donald Trump because Biden and I both went to the University of Delaware. Obviously, not at the same, I wouldn't. Not at the same time, no, but. Fair enough. But Biden was a regular presence there when I was a student, and I was the president of the student body,

so I wound up getting to serve on the board where Biden was as well. So I got to know him and we kept in touch over the years and then reacquainted when he was vice president and I was governor and he was very helpful during Sandy and made a number of trips to the state where I hosted him to help see the damage and do all that. So when we had kept in touch over all those years

and I just saw the precipitous decline in the Joe Biden I knew when I was a student to the Joe Biden I knew even when he was vice president to the guy who was running for president. And so that was the that was the reason that I did what I did. And and quite frankly, then on election night of 2020 was when I made the break because when he came out, meaning President Trump, came out and made his speech on election night where he said, you know, the election had been stolen. I was on ABC at the time.

That was your bridge too far? Yes. Not to use the bridge, by the way, sensitive topic. I don't wanna go bridge. Thank you very much, John. Your kindness is overwhelming. Thank you so much. We usually use that was the water over the dam but again that's just in our family now. Okay fair enough. Yeah you got it you got to really

reach for metaphors when I'm talking to ex-politicians here. You got to be very careful. So many different scandals. But you know in the end I said to him you know and I said it to him that night, that you have no way of knowing that this election was stolen, and what you're doing here is damaging our democracy, and I can't be supportive of it. And I said that on the air.

I said it was a disgrace on the air that night, and we really, except for one or two conversations, have not spoken since. And that was November of 2020. Look, I feel it in my bones, a certain fright about where this thing is gonna go. And the most difficult thing for me to reckon is that moment that you speak about,

that from November to January, that inability to concede the election results without any shred of legitimate court tested proof, anything that has evidentiary standards. As you know, the court system was really the only thing that held up. The fact that January 6th happened, not as a moment of a crime of passion, but as the result of careful weeks and months of planning by his legal team as to which obstacle he next had to reach. Like I think what they said was, this is your final shot. If we can't stop this electoral count, it's over.

If we can't somehow make it chaotic and get it thrown into the house, right? The most anti-democratic thing you could possibly achieve, at least in my mind, in an election in America. He was not punished for that. He was rewarded for that with not just an electoral college win, but a popular vote win. So what are we now to make of this?

We've all got in our minds that Chris Christie moment, a bridge too far, even for someone that I had doubts about, character flaws, all these different things. He finally crossed for you the Rubicon and America is unmoved by the character argument and the autocrat argument. America is unmoved by the character argument and the autocrat argument. So what are you left with?

Well, I think there's two things, right? First off, we have to concede that he is the most fearless communicator I've seen politically in my lifetime. And I don't mean that as a compliment. He is willing to say anything over and over and over again with passion. And for a lot of people who John, you know, look, you and I spend a lot of time thinking, reading, talking about this stuff. Most Americans don't. And so for them who just hear a snippet of this or that,

they listen to who they think is most convincing, and that sways a lot of people. I think the other thing about what happened in 2024 is that elections are always choices at the presidential level. Most Americans feel some type of obligation to vote in a presidential election. They may not vote in any of the other ones,

but they feel like for president I should vote, and turnout reflects that. And it was a choice here that I think really unfortunately for the country, the Democrats didn't present a choice that for a lot of Americans made sense. And I blame that on President Biden because he made a promise to us in 2020. He said he was going to be a transitional leader. And we all understood or thought we understood what that meant, which was he was going to serve one term because at 82 he was just going to be too old to be able

to do this. And then for whatever reason he changed his mind. And I think if Joe Biden had left and said, not left the presidency, but had said after the midterms, you know what? I held off the Republicans here at the midterms. I did my job. And now it's time to turn it over to a new generation of Democrats to see who the next nominee will be. I think you the Democrats would have had a vigorous primary, a lot of really good potential candidates out there. Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan.

You go through a whole list of them. And instead what he did was hang on till he was practically being shoved out the door with his fingernails grasping the door jam and left Kamala Harris as the only option. And vice presidents are never well thought of no matter which party it is. And gave her 107 days to try to convince the American people that she was better. And I think strategically for her, the big mistake was she didn't distance herself from Biden. And when 72% of the country, as the last poll the last weekend, said the country's on the wrong track, not separating yourself from the person who was president when it went to 72% wrong track is a politically fatal mistake.

So I think, John, for people who don't focus on politics, who maybe didn't think about this election until two or three weeks or maybe even less before election day, all that stuff matters and is part of the explanation for why he did as well as he did. But let's go, you know, it's interesting because you talk about it in terms of the people, right? And you say, well, it's a binary choice,

this person versus this person. But I think there's something deeper here about a system of government that people no longer feel is responsive enough for them. That democracy in and of itself has gotten sort of sclerotic and is not agile in the way that it needs to be. And is it that, you know, I don't necessarily disagree with Donald Trump's diagnoses. The system is rigged against people.

Powerful interests have the ear of our politicians. Uh, the government is not responding necessarily to the discomfort of its, let's call them customers, right? I think it's a Trojan horse. Uh, it seems like the, the, what the Republicans have in mind is kind of an undoing of the relationship that we have established between the people and the government since the New Deal. And further than that, the Immigration Act of the 60s and the Civil Rights Act of the 60s. These are the things that this Project 2025 wants to disassemble. It's sort of like project 1929 is that their aim and all

everything else is sort of noise is the signal here a refashioning of the relationship between the government and and the people I Think that maybe the goal of some of the folks who work with Donald Trump, I don't think Donald Trump has any overarching philosophical goal except that he wants to be powerful

and listened to and in charge. I think what is causing this is you're right about the underlying problem, which I've heard from Republicans and Democrats, which is I just want some competence. Like, it's their objection is less to, in the main on the programs and things that government does, is less about the programs in a

lot of instances and more about the way they function or don't function. The way they waste money, the way they don't bring things to the people that they really need and aren't responsive. And you can look at this in a number of different ways. The wildfires in California are just the latest example of it. But people are like, how the hell does this happen? Why isn't government on top of this? And we've seen it over and over again in a number of different ways. Everything from something as serious as the wildfires

to something as just annoying as the air traffic control system. And why are people so delayed when they're flying around the country all the time? Because it doesn't seem like the FAA can run the air traffic control system competently anymore. And I think that that anger, when people feel like they're paying a lot of money for this government and what are they getting for it,

is something that Trump was really able to tap into and that for whatever reason the Democrats felt the need to defend it holistically rather than say look you're right you know it can be done better and here are ideas for how it can be done better rather than say he he's, you're wrong, there's nothing wrong here. Everything's okay. Well, people, you know, they have eyes of their own and they make their own conclusions. So I think it's a little more complicated. All right, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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Solve the puzzle, save the patient. Morris Chestnut is Watson. Now streaming on Paramount Plus and new episodes return Sunday, February 16th on CBS. All right, we are back. You know, we sort of have two tranches there. One is the wildfire and the other is kind of the day to day. Jesus, I, I, I, when I want to apply for something, I have to go through 10 pages. And by the way, you know, if, if we were to have a moonshot rather than going to

Mars, I would like to see, uh, all of our best engineers and technicians on a bureaucratic moonshot to try and do a Manhattan project of ridiculous fucking paperwork and how you simplify that in a way that that makes sense. So I have great sympathy for that. The wildfire thing is slightly different in my mind because that also speaks to a larger, you know, everybody wants to stop these things, uh, and react to them. Like Los Angeles and climate change and no water. And like, there's a lot of factors that when, when a tornado comes and there's a fire, I don't, I don't know how many trucks you could park near the area and how much water you could have that would have stopped.

What was something that from a lot of the firefighters I talked to out there, they thought was inevitable that when you put that many houses in that dry a place with those high winds, this is going to happen. We're willing to scream at Los Angeles because they hired a lesbian fire chief and a black mayor, but nobody wants to talk about the way that these disasters have been exacerbated by climate and all kinds of other things.

Well, and look, I would say to you, yeah, everybody gets selective about what they wanna get outraged about, often depending upon where you sit, politically or philosophically. But I do think that there are things that can and should have been done in that instance, and quite frankly, let's personalize it.

We're both from New Jersey, we went through Sandy. And I think we've done a lot of things since Sandy that we learned to make structures more resilient, to not be piling up houses all along the shore that can't possibly sustain storms, to reinforce all of our infrastructure in ways that recognize that these storms can now happen so that we protect those things. And I think that that's what people are expecting.

But it's still hubris. I mean, there is still a certain set like, okay, Sandy hits, so we learned our lesson. Everybody eight feet up on stilts and let's put a berm up. But like, God is going to come in and go like, really? Stilts? You think, you think stilts? Like we have to have a certain acceptance of our vulnerability on this. I think we can always do a better job. There is no question in my mind that there were things that could be done, but when we focus so much on DEI

and all this other dumb shit that they think is determinative, like they built communities that were really dense with millions of people in arid areas that have fired things. Like I'm pretty sure that was not DEI. That was probably a white dude who designed that. Like, what are we doing? Well, and I look, I think you and I are saying the same thing, I think that there's bad decisions

that are made and you can't, the other thing that I used to say to people all the time when I was governor was, there's some things that I just can't help. Like, you know, you can do the very best you can and there's some things you can't help. Now, people don't like to hear that. And part of it is that people just don't

like when bad things happen for obvious reasons. And they need someone or something to blame. Now, you know, when you're also doing things that don't make sense to people, those become easy straw men to knock down, right? So if people look at DEI, and I think a majority of the people in the country now feel this way, that maybe that's not the best way to be making some of these selections

and choices of people for jobs, and maybe it should be based predominantly, if not exclusively, on competence. It creates an easy straw man, John, for folks who are looking for someone to do something to blame, right? I understand, but so let's break that down a little bit, because I think that is an incredibly powerful thread

that's been going through our society for a long time, that this idea of DEI is anti merit, you know, it takes our meritocracy that we work so hard to fix, which says like, when were we a meritocracy? Like at what point is diversity less competitive? Introdu introducing more people into the system who have different skill sets and come from different things. You know, hiring is subjective. There's no objective test. It's always subjective.

Let's look at the Secretary of Defense, right? Yeah. Well, now we live in a meritocracy. We've restored it. Lloyd Austin is the DEI candidate, even though he had, I don't know, 40 years of experience running large organizations. Like, if you got those two resumes between he and Pete Hegseth, which one would be considered of merit? And that's my point. My point is that just diversity in and of itself is not something that causes there not to be merit hires.

You can look at two resumes blind and if your example is a really good one, whether it's Lloyd Austin or Pete Hegseth on the paper, Lloyd Austin has significantly more high level experience to be Secretary of Defense than Pete Hegseth does. I think that what has developed over time because some people have taken that to an extreme, meaning the DEI implementation, is it allows people to think that and in some instances, they're absolutely true. It's absolutely true that those decisions were made purely for the diversity part of it, with the merit being well below it.

But where is that done? I'm trying to think, like my experience, you have experienced hiring as well, right? I do, a lot. I have experienced hiring. What I found was hiring has a certain inertia to it, right? Generally the people that kind of started whatever industry or whatever office did generally hire close to people that resemble them.

So, and I'm not even talking about white black, what I'm talking about, like, I'll just go with late night comedy, right? generally higher close to people that resemble them. So, and I'm not even talking about white black, I'm talking about like, I'll just go with late night comedy, right? David Letterman revolutionized late night comedy. He did it with a lot of Harvard, Lampoon, SNL, same way writers. So the comedy writing industry was for a long time, not necessarily out of malevolence or prejudice.

The inertia of it, the status quo of it, was nerdy white dudes from Harvard and the other Ivy Leagues. Very bad to say about Conan. That's horrible to be. Terrible to say. Saying that about Conan, John. But even when we went to like, oh, we're gonna do blind submissions,

what we didn't realize is all the agents are also steeped in that same status quo. So all the resumes, even when we would get them, still predominantly, when we went specifically to say, now this is what you would consider DEI, give us not that, open it up to make sure you give us women, people of color, other writers so that we can at least see what that is. And all of a sudden we found these incredible writers.

Now you could say, Oh, you put diversity over competence, but that's the red herring. We didn't, we opened up what were stagnant pools, pools that were incestuous. And we opened up those tributaries and isn't that what increases competition, not decreases it. Like here's, here's another example. All this talk about meritocracy. Vivek Ramaswamy comes out and says, all right, well we need these engineers on

H1B visas, right? They're very talented and everybody freaks the fuck out. How dare you prioritize these, what, better engineers? Like what are we actually talking about? Right. Look, I would give you the way that I tried to approach it. I became US Attorney in New Jersey in 02. I had never worked in the office before. So when I got there, I just did a lot of walking around the office to see like, okay, who's here? And John, it was the whitest, malest office I had ever been in in my life. And it was, and I was coming from private law practice. So what I did was I said, look, I am forcing us to go out and recruit candidates who are African American, Latino, Asian, women

and bring them to me. If they're not good, I'm not going to hire them. I'm convinced we're not seeing them. The aha moment for me on that concept and why it was the right way to go was there was a young guy that I hired very early on, African American, University of Michigan, University of Penn Law School, clerk for Alan Page, the former Minnesota Viking, defensive tackle in the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Absolutely, purple people leader.

And he's from New Jersey, grew up in Maplewood. And I said to him, why did you ever apply here before? And he said, because I knew people like me wouldn't get hired. And we then went about this process of hiring, you know, a large number of African American, Latino, and Asian prosecutors, but I would tell you that every one of them checked both boxes. They check

the box of they now look more like the community we represent than we did before. And these are really good lawyers. But that's the point of DEI is not there to just change the color scheme and the palette. It's to look at a broader, and by the way, it includes hiring veterans, people of different socioeconomic status.

Like it's not just race or gender, like diversity brings a resilience to your organizations that it might not have otherwise. And I don't think, John, that that's the way it's been implemented across the board in government. And I think people see examples of that and it makes them paint

the entire effort with the same brush. But without that, when has merit ever been implemented in that way? Legacy admissions to colleges, legacy admissions to the big firms. why do we assume that the so-called meritocracy, the way that things were done in the past when America was great, was an objectively meritocratic system. It wasn't, it's, it's, it's rigged. It's always been rigged. It's more rigged by that than any measure of bringing on somebody who's experienced for the position maybe slightly more unorthodox. And my argument to you is I don't think it makes it any better to just rig it in a different direction. And I think that's what people perceive was going on with DEI.

It's not rigging it in a different direction. It's unrigging it. But that's where we disagree. All right, little quick break, and then we're coming right back. Okay, and we're back. Governor. I think there have been a number of areas where there are people who hire certain folks just for their diversity.

And I've seen it happen here in New Jersey, you know, in the government since I left, where people say, I am going to make sure that I have one of every, it's almost like a half a Noah's Ark. Okay? I'm going to have one of these and one'm gonna have one of these and one of these and one of these and one of these. But you just told me that's what you did in the prosecutor's office.

No, no, what I did was get them in to interview them. And if it turned out, if it turned out, John, that they were also really good lawyers, they got hired. I'm talking about something different. I'm talking about predetermining the outcome in the way that you just talked about, and I believe that legacy about predetermining the outcome in the way that you just talked about, and I believe that legacy admissions predetermine the outcome,

that there have been some in charge of government across this country who have predetermined outcomes and said, I am going to have this many African Americans, this many Latinos, this many Asians, this many lesbians, this many gay men. And I think that when people see that, they say to themselves, that's not right either. Not that the other way was completely right, but now you're really screwing it up, they're both wrong.

Right, but what I didn't get, I didn't get any objection when I did what I did in New Jersey. It wasn't like a bunch of people started picketing saying when they started to see African American, Latino, and Asian, and women prosecutors in the federal courthouse that they started saying, what the hell is Christie doing over there? He's turning a place into this. No, I know, but that's because there's been a purposeful dismantling of anything that looks to repair the damage done by what were the legacy and the exclusionary practices of the past. That's purposeful. The backlash against DEI is not a populist uprising against hiring.

It's the purposeful framing of that through political actors. That's, I mean, that's what Christopher Rufo, that's what DeSantis like, that's what these guys are doing intentionally. This isn't the world suddenly saying, oh my God, what happened to our competence? Like there was something about they wanted a diversity program in hiring pilots.

And everybody was like, why don't they just hire the best pilots? And the idea is like, you really think they're out there just going, give me a black eye that doesn't know anything about the qualifications needed to become a pilot or won't study to become a pilot. It's just another way to retreat from, I think, the added competition of diverse populations.

I would say that airlines would not hire pilots given the importance of the safety of what they do if they didn't think they were competent. But you saw that was a huge story on the right. I did, however, I will also tell you that I think that a lot of people don't view certain government positions nearly as critical And so they feel like I can do this and I think the public senses that and that's the problem john

But they're getting blamed for the government's lack of agility and responsiveness so where I object to is now suddenly we go So what I object to is now suddenly we go, I appreciate the diagnosis, right? Government not responding to the discomfort of the people in an agile way. What I don't appreciate is that that is being blamed on DEI and illegal immigration. I think that it's being blamed on political actors on the other side of this, John, who are using it for their own political purposes. Let's be honest, there are people who, on the Democratic side of this, who will do it to try to make themselves look more caring to the minority community, more in touch with the minority community. And I think that their motivations are craven

in that regard, and not everybody, but I think a lot of them. Listen, the best example of that was after George Floyd, when the Democrats gathered, I can't remember where it was in the rotunda, like in Kente cloth. Yeah. You know, it was Nancy Pelosi standing, and I agree with you,

a lot of it can be performative, right? Yes, in Gucci shoes and Kente cloth, you know, I mean, it's good. Exactly. But the fact that it's distasteful doesn't mean that it's not necessary. And I think, and this ties back in, and this will bring it back around maybe to Donald Trump

and sort of how this is going. Make America great again. You're not quite sure what they mean. Do they mean return it to the default setting, which is, I guess, as you said, white male and competent? Is that the idea behind this? And is that what people are voting for? And in your mind, is that Donald Trump's vision of this?

No, I think Donald Trump thought it was a cool slogan that would respond to what people were feeling both when he ran in 2016 and when he ran in 2024, which was they were at that moment dissatisfied with the status quo. So if you can tie into that politically, rhetorically, and say, I'm going to make America great again, it does two things. It tells people, I agree with you, it's not great now.

And two, I'm the guy who can make it great like you remember it. And many Americans are going to have different feelings about when it was great and what made it great. The classic marketing tool of Donald Trump on this was it can mean whatever you want it to mean, John. And so people think Donald Trump has a vision. You don't think it's more purposeful than that? I mean, the co-opting of the language of like America first. I mean, it's got so many, look. Well, those are two different things. But they've really put them together.

What did he say in his inaugural speech? I will always put America first. He must be very aware of the evocation of that, no? The fact that you would assume that Donald Trump knows any American history is startling to me, John, because he doesn't. I honestly don't think you're giving him enough credit.

I think- No, you're wrong. I've known him a lot longer and a lot closer than you have. No, I don't know him at all. And John, I am telling you, he doesn't know. I could give a lot of examples of how he messes up American history. All right, all right.

We'll talk about him for a second. He took me to the Lincoln bedroom one time and he pointed to the desk in the Lincoln bedroom and he said, that's where Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address. Now, anybody who has read the history of the Gettysburg Address knows that Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the train

on the way to Gettysburg. I guess that was why it's so short. Yeah, exactly right. It's a short train ride. What he did at the desk was sign the Emancipation Proclamation. And I said to the then president, now president, I said, no, no, no, no, no.

It was the Emancipation Proclamation there. He wrote the speech on the way to Gettysburg and he looked at me and said, Chris, you really gonna correct me on this? I'm the president. I live here. So, I have to tell you, John, I think you're giving him too much credit. But let me say there's a difference, I think, between making America great again and America

first. And what I used to say in the campaign was, America first. I want everybody to raise their hands here who believes in America fourth. Put them up. Right, right, right in America fourth. Put them up. America fourth. Yeah, well it's one of those things that goes without saying in my mind.

Exactly, right? So these are things that are inoffensive when you look at them literally and allows you to then sell to people a couple of things. The people who are there now, it was Obama and Hillary back in 16, it was Biden and Harris in 24. America's not great because of them.

America's not first because of them. It is a purely political and rhetorical idea that, and this is the point I think you were getting at when I interrupted you, there are people around him who wanna populate that in a way that is much deeper and much different. But I'm telling you from Trump's perspective, he came up with that stuff and just went like,

this'll sell, and he's selling it. Wow. Remember, this is a Democrat. Trump was a Democrat. When I first met Trump, he was a Democrat donating to Hillary Clinton. This is not a guy. But again, transactional, I'm sure, to try and get.

Look, John, as transactional as you might wanna be, if you are steeped in what Donald Trump now says he's steeped in, philosophically, how could you write a check to Hillary Clinton? You couldn't, because you'd say to yourself, look, that's, to use your phrase, a bridge too far. Like, okay, I'll give to this one or that one because I have to because I need permits in New York

or something like that, but why am I giving to Hillary Clinton? Well, I'm giving to Hillary Clinton because at that time, he could have cared less about anything philosophically. And I think people are reading too much into him philosophically. He is transactional, John.

Whatever gets him from here to there. So then let's talk about then the people around him. I definitely view the way he runs this country as, look, he has run the Trump Organization. It's not a publicly traded company. He runs it. He is the the emperor of that empire. He is the king of it all. And I think that's where he's most comfortable being, yeah, obviously. And he is

looking at the federal government to reflect that ethos that he is steeped in that kind of imperious way. What I am seeing is our system is not very well prepared to handle somebody who's going to push it. There's enough cracks and air and loopholes and things within our system that if you want to push it, and by the way, he's nullified Congress because now he's got the House and the Senate and he's got the judiciary. Like everybody wants to say, okay, this is he's a fascist. What I'm looking at it as haven't we handed him the keys to that type of ruler.

He's been handed it democratically like that's what's most frightening to me is you always think of the last bulwark is the consent of the governed. Right. He has that and the Democrats are an utter disarray. So how do you realistically stand up to a person that is very comfortable operating at that Imperial level of our government at its kind of, the founders didn't think of it that way. They thought it would be a check and balance between

judiciary and legislative and executive. I don't think they viewed it as two parties fighting each other and a president that's going to push the shit out of this unitary executive. I mean, they almost made it that the president was like an eight person board. So I've yet to see what is the effective response to a democratic system that can be used in the way that it was designed to create a more autocratic system? Well a good question and here's what the founders also didn't count on that we would elect lousy people to the other branches or appoint lousy people to the other branches. Now, you know, you look at what's happening in Congress right now. And you have a group of people who in the

main are unwilling to stand up. I mean, the only way a check on a power is effective is if you're willing to exercise the check. And the founders couldn't also make it self-actualizing, there are human beings who have to actually do it. My problem with folks in my party right now is that people who I know disagree, who I know no better, are so wed to their position that they are unwilling to say what they truly believe. And that's the problem with the way the system's operating, John. The system is fine.

The people we've handed the keys to operate the system, not just in the executive branch, but in the legislative branch, are not doing their job, even to being honest with themselves. So, and this is the question that gets back to what we talked about originally. And it's not meant, it's not a gotcha, it's not meant to the thing.

You were one of those people. You knew. In 2016, you knew what this guy was. You knew all those things. You had rationalizations for why you didn't act upon that and call it out earlier. You not only, it's not even that you stepped back, you actively participated in there. So you, you, you, I think rightly have identified something, but very clearly it's, it's something you yourself, I think, fell victim to.

Well, you can say, well, in 2020, when he finally wouldn't concede, that's when I knew, but you did know and these people know and they don't do it. So, so what do you say to them and what do you say to yourself? Well, a few things. I think first off, to be fair about your characterization of me, wait, when do I have to be, you don't have to be fair about your characterization of me. Wait, when do I have to be? You don't have to be, I'm suggesting you might wanna be. All right, fair enough. That I did run against him in 2016.

But you weren't running against him, you were running for president, that's different. Well, no, no, no, it became pretty clear early that he became the front runner. Well. And I'm not one of those people who tries to, you know, hit in the side pocket, John, as you know. Right, right, right.

I went right at him in 2016. No question. And in 2024. But I believed in the system that we just talked about. Okay. And I said, okay, this is who the people have chosen. I'm going to go try to make him better. I'm going to work within the system to try to make him better. I'm gonna work within the system to try to make him better. And that's what I did in 2016. And throughout the first term of his presidency

was to continue to be the agitator to him to try to do things differently. And one of the people had known him for a long time, so I could get him on the phone and say, this is wrong, suggest people to serve that I think would make it better. That was a manifestation of my belief in the system. And what I concluded on the evening of 2020 was

he didn't give a damn about the system, right down to its very basic, which was the democratic act of electing a president. And that's when I said I'm out. Do you still believe in the system? I do. And the reason that I still believe in the system is because there's no friggin' alternative.

Well, apparently there's a bunch of alternatives. There's not. And I don't think there will be one with him either. I still believe that, and you talked't think there will be one with him either. You know, I still believe that, and you talked about the consent of the governed. That's why we have elections every two years. Now, if he does the things that I fear he will do. You really think it's going there.

You think, do you think the chaos is purposeful to start invoking some of those more emergency type powers? Is that where this is going? No, I think the chaos is being done because that's the way he loves to operate. That's where he is most comfortable. He is most comfortable in chaos and he's most comfortable in having people

fight with each other and have him be the ultimate arbiter of those fights. He loves that, he loves the interchange and the back and forth, not for educational purposes. So this is all just a fucking episode of The Apprentice? It's all a TV show. The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense is gonna be like Meat Loaf and Gary Busey

arguing in the boardroom? It's all a TV show, John. Look, John, what have you heard him say about the way he makes selections for positions? Yeah, he sees them on TV. The greatest compliment he feels like he can give to anyone, which he said about Pete Hegseth, for instance,

was he's out of central casting. And so for anybody to think that this is anything other than that, but with real life ramifications, has not watched him over this period of time. Now, there will be things that he will do that I will agree with philosophically, but the problem for me is I cannot rationalize away the character mistakes, the pettiness, the vindictiveness,

and all the rest of it by saying, yeah, but I agree with him on what he's doing on fill in the blank, whatever it might be. And that's where you have a lot of Republicans right now are rationalizing it that way. Well, I agree with this, but I don't like him. And I disagree with him, personally. But I feel like I personally, but I feel like I agree with many of his policies, so I'll be with him. The problem is that he does things like this, pulls the security detail from Mike Pompeo. Now, that is nothing but pettiness and vindictiveness colored with absolute mortal danger. Here's Pompeo as CIA director and secretary of state who executes an order from the commander in chief

in alignment with our system and gets Soleimani assassinated. The Iranians now say we're gonna kill Pompeo and a couple of other folks too, John Bolton, Ryan Hook. And as a result, the intelligence community says, we need to give these guys security. Because they didn't jump through hoops

to support Donald Trump, he's now pulled it. And said, hey, they have money, they can buy their own security. Well, that may or may not be true. I don't know the financial circumstances of those three guys. But what I will tell you is having had public security and private security, public security is much better.

Because they have access to intelligence, they have access to information that private security guys just don't have. To me, that's the essence of the problem here is that no matter what he may do from a policy perspective that you agree or disagree with, he will always revert back to pettiness, vindictiveness. He will always take the cruelest option he can possibly come up with. Absolutely right.

So that brings us to, and I'm cognizant of your time, and I really do appreciate you being here, and this will sort of bring us back around to the end. When I look at that, his pettiness or his cruelty or his comfort in chaos, I feel like the arguments against him have been litigated now for 10 years through the public and through the courts.

We've gone through 10, 12 years of he's terrible, he's a threat to democracy, he's an autocrat. And Americans saw that, they saw January 6th, they saw everything, they saw the convictions, the felonies, and they went, yeah, we're good with that. Not only we're good with that, we're better with that than we were the last time. And we've talked a little bit about, you know, your idea that Republicans, uh, have shown their character by not in any way standing up to that aspect of it, even if they might agree with them

philosophically on certain areas. So now let's talk about the Democrats because this is the team I consider my team. And I feel they are utterly rudderless. They've litigated the, he's an autocrat and he's a dick argument. It hasn't gone anywhere. And it seems like they are utterly unprepared for this onslaught and are still just shouting autocracy rather than look, this guy walked into office with a project 2025 book. This is a 50 to 60 year project they've been working on. How is it that the Democrats are so flat footed here and where is their counter to that idea that Americans feel left out of the government? Why are they just status quoing it?

Why are they just sending out Chuck Schumer to put his glasses down by his nose to look down and read a statement in as flat a monotone as you could possibly muster about the existential danger we face of this autocrat and then like take a quick call from his kid and laugh about, my grandson lost a tooth. And then he goes back to like, why is Obama laughing with him at a thing? It all feels performative. And what is the actual, where's the book that says, this is what the relationship with the government is,

and here's how we're gonna fix it? First off, I'd say they overplayed and over-litigated the character things on Trump, especially in the 24 campaign. The people who were not gonna vote for Donald Trump on the character issues already determined they're not going to vote for Donald Trump. The people that the Democrats had to persuade were the people you and I were just talking about who said, like, look, I get that.

But the government sucks. And you guys are running it and it sucks. And what's your answer to that? And neither Biden nor Harris during this last cycle had an answer to that, nor did Chuck Schumer, nor did any of the rest of them, because their answer to all that was, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but Trump would be worse. Well, you know what they figured out?

People went, nah, maybe not. Because you guys aren't giving me an alternative. And I think that the problem is that there is two things going on inside the Democratic Party. There is an unresolved conflict within the Democratic Party from the very progressive wing of the party to the more traditional Democrats about who's gonna run the show

and who's gonna write the playbook. They haven't resolved that problem and they all papered it over and you gotta have the fight inside the Democratic Party to what is it that we stand for governmentally. What do we believe in? What would we do for people to deal with that disconnect and the discontent that's going on? They haven't answered those questions. But the Republicans are very good at, they've lined up a lot of their think tanks with their media, with their political arms. They have fights too. They've got a freedom caucus. Like

right now the democratic strategy appears to be, let's hope Chip Roy is so fucking crazy that he'll just stand up and make it impossible for the house to pass anything rather than you can't just tell people to steer away from that crash you have to give them a direction to drive into and I know that's being reductive but they don't seem to have that same infrastructure or leadership you're right they don't right now and that same infrastructure or leadership. You're right, they don't right now. And that's the problem with having gone back to Biden.

Going back to Biden in 20 was a reaction to Trump. It was like, okay, he's the guy who will be least offensive and will make Trump the focus. But he won, I mean. Well, but won what? Then he came in. The presidency. The presidency. Right, but no, but John, one,

this is what I mean, that like, when he got there, he started to go much more progressive than he had talked about during the campaign. Oh, I don't, I mean, if your idea is like, the Democrats lost because Biden was too progressive, I would, you know. No, no, let me finish the thought. All right.

It was cognitively dissonant for people. They didn't believe that's who Biden was, either outside the party or inside the party. So he got the worst of both worlds. The people inside the party who were progressive never trusted him. They didn't think he was one of them. The people outside the party who were more moderate said,

son of a bitch, he lied to us. He is a progressive. He got absolutely sandwiched politically and now no one knew who he was. And the worst thing in politics to be, John, is to be perceived to be inauthentic. And Trump's power is that people believe what he believes, what he says.

Which is entirely the opposite of what reality is. He's a guy who says, I'm the free speech is back, and by the way, somebody should remove MSNBC from the air and CBS, and I'm gonna sue everybody. Like, it's incoherent. Correct. I totally agree that he is a transactional speaker, right? Whatever gets him, you know, the old song,

whatever gets you through the night. For Trump, that's the way he speaks all the time. Whatever gets him, you know, the old song, whatever gets you through the night. For Trump, that's the way he speaks all the time. Whatever gets him through this moment. But my point on the Democrats is, they were in the worst possible space they could be. They didn't have a game plan, as you mentioned, an offering to the American people substantively, and they were viewed as inauthentic.

Well, shit, what's gonna happen then? People want common sense. They want a common sense, articulated alternative to what they're being presented with. And in the absence of one, they'll vote for the group that they think looks most authentic. Now, the challenge for Republicans

to not make it seem like it's gonna be all like hearts and flowers and it's going to be easy. When you've got a three or four vote majority in the House, two right now, everybody's a king. And whatever is happening right now, remember, it's all been executive orders. Not a thing has happened through Congress. He's basically nullified them. Right at the moment. But he's not going to be able to do that on the tax law. He's not gonna be able to do that

on real substantive changes to immigration. But don't you think reconciliation allows him much more leeway through the Senate? I mean, he's gonna push everything to reconciliation. It does through the Senate. But in the House, here's his problem on reconciliation. There is a large group of Republicans, and by large I mean,

Chipporoy. 25 to 30, that are gonna say like, hey, we're not increasing the debt ceiling in March unless there is significant reductions in government spending. See, here's where I think he's gonna get around that. And I truly believe this. I think they're being really shrewd about this.

I think they actually are going to be ruthless in cutting spending. And I think you're seeing that now with the freeze on everything else. Like I think he's, I think he's calculated that into their project. I think these guys, again, they've thought this through. They have a game plan in my mind. This really is, and maybe it's just because it's my team. In my mind, this really is, and maybe it's just because it's my team. I'm so frustrated with their inability to mount any coherent opposition other than I'm telling my lawyer, we're telling our lawyers to file an injunction.

And I mean, come on guys, this is autocracy. And it goes back to the only path I see out of this really dark tunnel that we're in. And I do feel like it's dark and going to get darker. Is to, they have to have at least one of the handles of power. And to get that, they have to present a convincing, authentic, coherent, uh, and, and directed and led vision, not of I'm a progressive, I'm a conservative, I'm a thing, I'm a that of how to make this thing work, how to make it work for people to agilely respond. They're paying money in what are they getting back?

And what does that mean to their lives? And if they can't do that, we're royally fucked. That is the premise. You should be extraordinarily disappointed in your team and the lack of any coherent, saleable, authentic plan. I totally agree with you. But remember this, games are both offense and defense. Uh-oh. Now you're talking my life. Now this is all bringing it back to sports radio, baby.

Let's go. Offense and defense. It's exactly right. We're going to get on FAN any moment now. There you go. Look, it all comes back to offense and defense. There are big expectations on the Republicans to deliver on a bunch of the stuff they're talking about. And for instance, when you talk about significant cuts in spending, when you only have

a two or three vote majority, there are a lot of moderate Republicans from New York, Illinois, California, who are going to have a hard time voting for some of those things. And let us not forget the premise of what I mentioned before. What they care about the most is keeping the title, John. And the title is kept for them by the people back at home, not by the people in Washington. So the challenge for Republicans and for Trump is going to be, can he muscle this through and have them basically say, you're going to have to sacrifice your career for what I want to get done here? And I got to tell you something, I haven't seen that

type of political courage out of any of them because they're unwilling to stand up and do those things. So Democrats though, if they're counting just on that to get them over the finish line to getting a handle of power in either the House or the Senate, I think they're going to be sorely disappointed. They have to do both. They have to hope that the Republicans make strategic mistakes in that regard, but they gotta come up with a plan that is authentic and genuine. That people in the center of this country, and I mean the philosophical center of this country, can say, oh, I agree with that. Yeah, no, that doesn't offend me. And they don't have that right now. And you're right about Chuck Schumer.

I mean, if you could have a worst salesman to put up next to Trump, I don't know that it's possible, right? Now, I think Akeem Jeffries is a little more politically skilled than Schumer. Of course, that's a low bar, but nonetheless, I think he's a little more skilled than him. And getting Pelosi out of there would be a real help because rightly or wrongly, and people have a certain perception of her in the philosophical middle of the country that's not positive. So the fact is that Democrats have to change the cast,

if we're gonna go back to the TV show analogy, they gotta change the cast and they gotta get some better writers for the script because they don't have that now. And here's what's frustrating for a guy like. Perhaps if they opened up the hiring to. So we tied it all around. I'm telling you, this is really one of those things that people say,

wow, those two guys really get it. It it's to me, John, the frustrating thing for somebody like me is. Like, as governor, I tried to be this way. I try to be practical and consistent and sometimes you're gonna like it and sometimes you aren't but I my job is to run this thing and to get it to work as best as I possibly can get it to work and I don't think anybody's thinking about it that way right now they're all thinking about it from a political advantage a chess or checkers

depending upon the level of intellect that's going on in this stuff. And look, and I think ultimately, you know, you as a governor, I think ultimately what's going to happen is the states are going to have to, the system is still federalist, and I think we're gonna see power returning to some of the states, and I think you're going to see governor's profiles raised within that,

and I think they're gonna come up with really creative solutions to protect the people most vulnerable to a lot of the shit that's going down. And, and someone, I have faith that someone may not rise out of the legislative arms of the party, but out of the executive arms of the party, you may start to see, uh, uh, some changes made and some things come up. But, uh, ultimately, uh, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today and giving the insights

into what you were given. So thank you for being here. No, John, my pleasure. Always happy to come back. And I'd say as things go along here, because it's gonna change. It's gonna change. No, I know.

And I would say there are not many people out there who know Trump as well as I've gotten to know him over time. And Ben, someone who he said was the greatest governor in America and now is the worst SOB. And he's not hyperbolic. At all. And now I'm the worst SOB in the world and every cruel beam he could send out, he does. And I never believed it when he said I in the world and every, you know, cruel beam he could send out, he does.

And I never believed it when he said I was the greatest and I don't believe it now. I'm calling balls and strikes here because I know him well. And I will say one thing if I can about the governor's place. I, you know, I say to my kids all the time when they accuse me of being biased on something, I say, okay, I'm biased, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong. And I'm biased about governors because they're the ones who have to give practical results, not the people in Congress. They have to actually plow the snow. They have to do things that run the schools, do all the things that need to be done. And I do think that you're gonna see a lot of people on both parties emerge from the governor's ranks

to try to set a different path and a more creative path and a more practical path. And hopefully it's the right ones who emerge. Yeah, there's good ones and bad ones. Well, we'll have you name those next time. Well, that's right. That's good, that's a little preview. You know, this is also showbiz, look at you.

You're giving a little preview for my next appearance, John. It's a teaser, it's a teaser. Very nice, very nice. Yeah, that's what I do. Well, and I believe that's really important for us to focus on, that everything in this country doesn't happen in Washington. And that in state capitals all over this country,

you can make a real difference in people's lives. And I'd argue probably a more direct and substantive difference at that level than ever happens in Washington because they're all scared of their own shadows and want to just protect their title. They want to be called congressman and senator forever. Get that good healthcare. That's what they're in there for. It's not bad, John. Right. From what I'm told, never been there. Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey. Thank you so much, presidential candidate. And we really do appreciate you coming on today. Mr. Jersey.

There you go. Good to be on with you. I appreciate it, John. Beautiful. Thanks, Mike. Chris Christie. I want to thank him very much for the conversation. For those of you who didn't see before we got started

in the conversation, we talked about Metz, and I don't think I've ever seen him as animated. I think that's the key is you bring up the Metz and Chris Christie goes. So I wanna also point a quick note. We taped a separate little piece talking about an Afghan resettlement program for allies of the United States

who had been in Afghanistan, who are having trouble now with the program that was set up to get them into the United States safely. And we talked to Sean Van Diver, who is heading up a program called Afghan EVAC about the status of that program. You can check that out as well. I think we're gonna put that out as a separate piece,

so as rather not to make your podcast listen as long as. I don't know how far your car ride is, is what I'm trying to say to you. I don't know how this goes. So anyway, we appreciate you sticking with the program, listening to it. Please keep sending all your suggestions and such, and we'll check you out next week.

As always, lead producer, Lauren Walker, producer, Brittany Mametovic, video editor and engineer, Rob Vitolo, audio editor and engineer, Nicole Boyce, researcher and associate producer, Jillian Spear, and our executive producers, Chris McShane and Katie Gray. Thank you guys so much. Could not, could not do this thing without all their hard work.

Really appreciate it and we'll see you next week. Boy. The weekly show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions.